Swimming (32 page)

Float

The rains cease, the wall beside me full of scribbles I have to lean in to read. The sky shifts, revealing an ocean of black, revealing an ocean of star, revealing an ocean of moon, the world so quiet its silence wakens. I move a chair to the window and look up. A world of marvels. Star pods twirling into star flowers. Energy molecules. Black holes. White holes. Glowing dully. The universe expanding so we can fill it up with more and more shit. My mind bids:
Count! Twenty billion, nineteen billion nine hundred and ninety-nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine …
until I find myself standing in front of a shiny dark green door sitting in the middle of a pale gray house, lacy ferns exploding out of a cracked terra-cotta pot. There’s a chair by the door nobody sits in with a box of rusty nails on top, millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, morphing into dust. The floor of the porch has been painted white, but has not remained white; there is a line of gray marking the passage of shoe. The screen smells lightly of dust. I press the bell.

June told me there was no earthly reason for her sister to be named Chan because there was nothing Chan to her; she was soft and blond, with the wide high forehead of the mentally slow. I’d met her once before in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. She was smoking a cigarette, chewing gum, holding a Slurpee in one hand, talking to a truckload of guys with a truckload of dogs behind them. I remember the cutoffs she wore—you could see her
V
.

Chan? I’m a friend of June’s
.

I know who you are
. She’s turned into a dough girl with muted doughy features. There are streamers hanging behind her and a dragon kite with a red tail.

June was … We lost track
. I just had the wires removed from my jaw, am still lisping out of solidarity with my past.

She sighs.
She started drinking again
. Friendly dough features sink.

I sigh back.
A lot?

She shifts a little from left to right.
Yes
.

All the time?
I say, looking down at her tiny feet.

Like an alcoholic
, she says with a hard laugh.

Do you know where she is? I
ask.

No
, she says, and a little boy with a little boy bowl cut runs up to her, grabs her legs, pulls.
I told her that if she left with that crazy … man … in a wheelchair not to call me ever again. She hasn’t called
.

Jason?
I say, staring down at the boy staring up at me, index finger deep in his nose.

Yes
, she says.
He had a forklift on the side of his van. She left. That same day
.

A forklift?
I say dumbly.

Yes
, she says, and her son runs away.

Do you know where in Florida?
I ask, leaning into the doorway.

Somewhere near West Palm was the last I heard, but she’s mad at me
, she says, taking a step back.

How long has she been … mad?
I ask, looking into the box of nails.

Six years
, she says, starting to get antsy.

Six years
. I say.
That seems like a lot. She’s not … dead, is she?

Noooo
. This surprises her.
Why would she be dead?

Six years
, I say, watching the poor dragon fly nowhere.
I don’t know
.

When June’s drinking … she’s—
she looks at me, shrugs
—you know June
.

She never comes back?
I ask, but I know the answer.

She’d rather die
, says Chan, crossing doughy Chan arms.

When you see her, tell her I haven’t forgotten or anything. And tell her I said thanks
. I stop leaning, start walking backward.

I will
, she says, then shuts the door.

O Everlasting Death, You Bastard, Vile Yucker

My father visits me, standing taller and thinner than his own black shadow. He’s cut his hair, is neatly shaved, wearing a soft gray flannel suit and very nice shoes.
Night bats are generally duller in tone, although a darker shade does not exclude a colorful life. The less-tutored mind tends to see a mystic connection. These are but a few of the great many marvels and mysteries to ponder
.

I say:
Thanks, Dad
. We hug and he pats me on the head.

When I wake up, his pat is still there. I touch it, look out my window at a thick layer of Kansas snow gathering on the sill. It’s snowing downward, the slow snow that feels good to stand under and look up at. A million whirling flakes, insulation gathering on the arms of trees, on the legs of the rusty wrought-iron summer chairs, zooming down, spiraling in spirals, zipping, zagging, softly landing on my face melting into me and snow becomes me and I become snow. I’m waiting for Leonard, who is never late, my hair freezing into strings of ice as I watch the snow fall, the halo of white gold around the lights in the parking lot, the halo of electricity around the homes with single stories pictured in one big window multiplied by one block, then repeated throughout Glen-wood. I am alone; the other Dolphins left a while ago. His car pulls up. He’s wearing his Boris Yeltsin hat and a sad-lipped smile, says:
Sorry I’m late
, and pats me on the head, the night hacking his face roughly out of shadow. I say:
That’s okay, Dad
. I sink into the passenger seat, not looking at what is coming along on the road, not having to. I am surrounded in safe, my father, his hat, this soft, cold world with tender, delicate foliage. Leonard is in a quiet mood, does not discuss erosion, corrosion, pollution, despair. The heaters are blowing full blast onto my face, turning the car into a hot, liquidy sauna. I close my eyes, look downer, vast and twirling, a myriad of island in the midst of some stream. I’m wearing a red swimsuit with
GCC
written in white swirly letters and it’s suddenly summer. I perk up; summer does this to me.

I’m sitting on the tall lifeguard chair at the Glenwood Country Club. It’s fucking hot; old people without air-conditioning are dying like flies, a new one every day. I layer zinc on my lips and the wings of my nose. Lifeguards get free lunch and anything they want to drink all day long, but other than that, I’m deeply disappointed. I saunter over to the concessions stand with my hot-pink visor shading the world a pleasant swash of psychedelic color. I order a couple of bottles of Gatorade. I thought I’d sit up there like every lifeguard I’ve ever seen, hard and cool, with evenly spaced brown toes sticking out of sandals with good grip, but the guy I’m shadowing is an A number one squint named Brent who spends his time checking out the chickees and letting me guard the lives. This is what he said to me the first day, he said:
If you need me, I’ll be down at the deep end checkin’ out the chickees
.

The Cocoplat is doing an internship at the Beaver Park Pool. She’s shadowing an ex-Dolphin who drives a navy blue convertible with a creamy leather interior. On her first day, she’d given her a whistle in a special fun ceremony with the other lifeguards, three of whom were hot. They clean out lockers and skinny-dip after hours. They whiz by me hooting up a storm as I ride uphill on my bike, my legs steeping in lactic acid hell. Bron woke me up last night, said she was afraid. I stared at the darkness until her dark form emerged, and the fear enveloped us both in tight arms. I said:
Don’t be afraid. I’m here
. And I was; I could feel myself being.

Glenwood Country Club kids have sick notions of fun. They lie on the floor of the pool with their eyes open, no bubbles of air leaving their mouths, and this for as long as they can stand it, or until I pull them out, blowing my whistle like a maniac. They float on their stomachs with their arms limp at their sides, secretly breathing through the web of their hair. I pull some out using standard Red Cross technique, gently, by the back of their necks, and not their hair as is later claimed. I get yelled at by the mothers, who then complain to Geo, the head lifeguard and Lord of All. The Glenwood Country Club kids catch on, devise new techniques, swimming fast, then yowling with cramp, waving spastically at me from the water as Brent checks out the oiled chickees and their mothers. I whistle like a maniac, pull them out using standard Red Cross procedure. They yell, shrieking as though I’m trying to kill them. Mothers get together in a huddle, whispering, stopping only to point up at me sitting in my chair, staring at the pink world below me with an amazingly neutral face. Geo calls me into his office, which is really the toolshed off the men’s locker room, and gives me the
We can’t all be lifeguards
speech, demoting me cruelly to the concessions stand, where I learn to develop the perfect batch of popcorn. It is crunchy, lightly salted, no strands of oil or butter derivatives, light as air, as filling and as perfect as Styrofoam.

Geo saunters by with a fake
sorry
sitting in the middle of his devil-wolf eyes. I laser him from under my visor:
Your real name is George and everyone knows it
.

At the end of the two weeks, I sit down with Brent, Geo, and Coach Stan for my evaluation. Geo and Brent speak in chime like church bells requesting input from God Our Immortal Father.

Overuse of whistle
.

Overuse of shout
.

Dangerous use of safety procedure
.

Brent says:
She could have hurt someone, Coach. She caused considerable stress amongst our mothers … the mothers
.

Geo says:
Honestly, Stan. I’ve never seen anything like it
.

I am ashamed, slouch into chair. Stan looks at them for a thousand years without saying anything. The silence rolls heavily like an avalanche of rock. He says:
Are you kidding me? Is this a joke? She’ll make a damn fine lifeguard. I’d like to look into the training methods you used. I won’t accept this; I’ll appeal. There’ll be inquiries. If you’d like to take this conversation to the pool, my money’s on her. It’s up to you now, gentlemen
.

Geo is leaning his chair back on two legs, chomping on a piece of green gum. At the word
gentlemen
, he pauses in surprise.

Stan looks at him, box-jawed.

Geo leans forward, putting his chair back on all fours with a slam.

I feel a rush of joy, the hair on my arm rising in excitement, the deep inner workings of my brain twirling in the archaic dance of surprise joy. I cross my arms and squint:
No more free Gatorade
. The room hangs with the perfume of stubborn balls, suntan oil, zinc oxide, Fanta, Old Spice, smelly feet, steaming shoe, tennis racquet, bleach, a lingering sausage burp. I can hear clocks ticking and golf men rumbling in that low golf murmur.

It doesn’t take long. Geo swallows, his gum moves, life moves forward.
Okay. She passes
.

Stan drives me home. We stop for ice cream on the way, leaning on the hood of his hot car, trying to lick before it drips.

Stan likes to state the obvious, says:
Boy, this is cold!

I am still amazed.
How did you know Geo’s real name was George?

He’s not amazed.
That wasn’t about Geo; that was about you
.

At the dinner table that night, Bron says:
How’s the popcorn stand going, Buffy?

Leonard looks over:
What popcorn stand? Who’s Buffy?

I look at her. She looks back and smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
Oh nothing
.

My heart fills with an infinite, eternal love of all of life’s great surprises and all of life’s other things. She could do that sometimes.

I only see Sister Fergus one more time after the L.A. Olympics and that is when she’s in her coffin. She is all folded up, her face as smooth as statue, her long heavy wooden cross with the worn wooden beads woven lightly through her waxy hands. I feel bad about this at least once a week, more around Christmas. She has white eyebrows and kitten whiskers. I close my eyes, the church bells clamor, the nuns raise their eyes to the blinding hot sun.

I avoid the cemetery, never go, not with flowers, not with candles, not with hand-painted stones or sturdy plants. I do not fall down upon her body buried deep under earth. I do not implore the Dark Catholics for inside information. I do not beg God for a real glimpse of heaven. I stay at home and have fights with myself:

Go to the cemetery
.

I will
.

No, really. Go to the cemetery
.

I will, soon
.

I walk the streets of Paris, accidentally skimming over what matters because I am afraid it will kill me and if it kills me, I shall die. I pluck the thought out, put it in the shower, turn the water on full blast, watch it glide down the drain, but at night I become a different person. The Russian guy understood these things, would look at me and say:
Everything is going to be okay; don’t be nuts
and I believed him.

Small and Smaller
Until One Day You’re Gone

I take to walking at night just to see what’s out there. Hundreds of unsuspecting people march under volt upon volt of artificial light; five kids kick balls in a dark sculpted park; a skinny blonde cries into her phone; couples grope each other down by the water, cute cops with machine guns wander around in packs of three, buildings are glowing, windows are glowing, the flowers on the balconies are glowing, people are eating, elbows pressed into their sides, sliced
pain
sitting in a small wicker basket, candles flickering, lighters flicking, water flowing, church admonishing, gargoyles laughing, saints protecting, a golden Joan of Arc leaning into herself, a golden shadow of God shining in her eyes, crêpes flipping, butter melting, drunk guy pissing, man in tuxedo running, mean-faced lady in impossible shoes hobbling, taxis blurring, night convecting a dull rubbery heat. I keep walking. The Eiffel Tower sends out search beams that capture nothing but renegade cloud. I sit on a bench and concentrate on all the things I can do.

I can get up at ten.

I can sled recklessly down hills toward oncoming traffic.

I can ride in bumper cars all day long, be the weird chick at the fair.

I can hammer things into a pulp, put boots on, go outside, and saw down a tree.

I can snowboard off an icy mountain ledge into thin mountain air.

I can brag and swear at strangers.

I can sleep with non-swimmers, find one that I like. We can have nine babies together; none of the babies will die. I will teach them things, fill the world up, be very busy.

I can go back to school, learn something I’ll remember.

I can take a shower in the morning and not get wet the rest of the day.

I can take cough syrup when I cough, aspirin when my head hurts.

I can cultivate tubes of lard around my middle, have myself another chin.

No need to smile ever again.

I can scare kids into swimming well. I’ll have my own stopwatch I’ll click when I feel like it. I’ll yell at them until they cry, then make them get back in the water.

I can wind my way around cities, no destination in mind.

I can do zero percent nothing until I can’t stand it anymore.

I close my eyes, put roller skates on, speed backward as fast as I can. Mom’s so pregnant, her poor head looks fat; she’s got both hands on her belly, both eyes to the sky. I wave, twirl, wave again, my ponytail flying in the wind. Leonard says:
I’ll tell you a story of a bat whose lifeline was shorter than his wingspan, but boy could he fly
. I pass Bron, who’s still fixing that ten-speed; she’s banging on the spokes with what looks like nun shoe. I do some dangerously fancy turns, swooshing around her like a spastic fly. I know I won’t fall.